Nemesis by Smith Wilbur & Harper Tom

Author:Smith, Wilbur & Harper, Tom [Smith, Wilbur & Harper, Tom]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical, Adventure
ISBN: 9781804180150
Amazon: B0BRT7TZ42
Goodreads: 78816263
Publisher: Zaffre
Published: 2023-06-20T07:00:00+00:00

CALCUTTA, 1806

T

he Mornington’s anchor dropped into the brown Hooghly river. Adam heard the splash and the gurgle of water as the flukes sank into the mud. There was excited chatter as the passengers boarded boats to row ashore. Adam had not seen the other passengers before, but Lizzie had described them in such mischievous detail, he felt he almost knew them. She had a keen eye for their absurdities and ridiculous mannerisms. Often, during their long nights talking together, she had almost made Adam give himself away by laughing at her impersonations.

He imagined her among the other passengers in her bright dress and sun bonnet, gazing at the continent that was to become her home. He imagined her as he had last seen her, naked and beautiful, and felt an ache inside. She had offered him a life of happiness, and he had spurned it.

He told himself to forget her. All that mattered now was his revenge.

He had to leave the ship unnoticed. He stripped naked, tied his breeches around his waist to make a rough loincloth, and wrapped his shirt in a turban about his head. The dark skin he had inherited from his mother could easily pass as an Indian’s. He stooped, so that his height would not mark him out, and hoisted one of the casks onto his back. When the Indian lascars entered the hold to unload it, he slipped in among them unnoticed and carried his load up on deck.

As he climbed the ladder through the main companionway, the light was so bright he cried aloud. It was the first time he had seen the sun in weeks, and his eyes were unprepared for the harsh tropical glare. He screwed them shut, and nearly fell back down the ladder in his blindness.

Tentatively, he squinted, enough to see his way. Dressed as a native, he became invisible to the ship’s officers and crew: with so many stevedores swarming aboard, one unfamiliar face was unremarkable. No one challenged him as he carried his load to the ship’s side and slithered down the ladder into the waiting boat.

This was his first visit to Calcutta, and in all his voyages nothing had prepared him for it. It was as if imperial Rome had been rebuilt in the middle of the Indian jungle. As far as he could see, the river was lined with palatial villas whose long gardens ran down to the water. Closer to the centre, the bastions of Fort William sprawled over almost a square mile footprint, stamping down the East India Company’s military power. It had been built to replace a predecessor fort, which had been sacked by an Indian army some fifty years earlier. The defenders who were captured had been locked in an airless cell, nicknamed the ‘Black Hole’, on the hottest night of the year. Of the hundred and fifty who were incarcerated, only thirteen had survived.

Beyond the fort stood the administrative centre, where the East India Company ran the commerce and government for the empire they had built.

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